U-M Microsoft 365 Implementation Project

This project completed in July, 2019, and this project site is no longer maintained. For current information, visit the Microsoft Office 365 at U-M service site. 

Sponsor: Andy Palms
Project Manager: Jeff Castle

Microsoft 365 is an all-in-one Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that includes the Microsoft Office 365 suite, Mobile Device Management, OneDrive, and potentially other Microsoft cloud services. The current state of Microsoft 365 at U-M is an environment that was set up to solely support the release of Office 365 to campus. The goal of this project is to work with units to develop and implement support, configuration, and release strategies for a more robust managed Microsoft 365 service that will help U-M meet its academic and research IT needs.

Important: U-M Google and U-M Box remain the recommended and fully-supported collaboration platforms at U-M

The project team has been tasked to:

  • Explore the tools included with Microsoft 365
  • Determine which modules / tasks need ITS (central) support
  • Define the architecture / setup needs to be managed centrally to allow campus and / or units to adopt tools

Together this project and its Advisory Group:

  • Ensures that campus units and individuals can both access tools which might be of interest to them and helpful in their work
  • Provides a campus-wide channel for communications on what is available, what has been adopted, what has not been adopted, and what might not be beneficial to adopt at this time
  • Allows the collaboration services and other ITS groups to be well-versed in the two major productivity / collaboration players in the industry and see the larger landscape of how the university can integrate various tools with one another to make it easier to teach, learn, and work